C. S. Lewis on myth —
"The stories I am thinking of always have a very simple narrative shape—
a satisfactory and inevitable shape, like a good vase or a tulip."
The image and quote are from posts tagged Spectral Valhalla.
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Spectral Valhalla … Continues.
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Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Spectral Evidence
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Saturday, January 4, 2020
Friday, January 3, 2020
Spectral Woo
"… during that spell between the feasts of Christmas and Epiphany
when ghosts and specters are supposed to be abroad . . . ."
Heinrich Zimmer on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Times Literary Supplement , January 3, 2020
Sciences | Book Review
The world is not enough:
Guessing at the game God is playing
By Samuel Graydon
See as well …
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Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Spectral Theory
Peter J. Cameron attributes failure of his usual
link to the NASA "Astronomy Picture of the Day"
(APOD) to the US government shutdown, and
gives a substitute link.
Here is yet another substitute link, this one
specifically to today's picture —
Related literary remarks by Nabokov —
Among the many exhilarating things Lake taught
was that the order of the solar spectrum is not
a closed circle but a spiral of tints from cadmium
red and oranges through a strontian yellow and a
pale paradisal green to cobalt blues and violets,
at which point the sequence does not grade into
red again but passes into another spiral, which
starts with a kind of lavender gray and goes on to
Cinderella shades transcending human perception.
— Pnin
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Friday, April 6, 2012
Spectral Theory
“And we may see the meadow in December,
icy white and crystalline” — Johnny Mercer
“At another end of the sexual confusion spectrum….”
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Tuesday, December 12, 2023
If It’s Tuesday…
|
“The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, — Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness
“By groping toward the light we are made to realize
— Arthur Koestler, The Call Girls: A Tragi-Comedy, |
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Wednesday, March 2, 2022
Looking for Outliers
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Sunday, January 17, 2021
The Miscast Spell
See Spectre and Spectral in this journal.
Details — “California Health Care Facility inmate Phillip Spector, 80,
was pronounced deceased of natural causes at 6:35 p.m. [California time]
on Saturday, January 16, 2021, at an outside hospital. His official cause of
death will be determined by the medical examiner in the San Joaquin
County Sheriff’s Office.”
— California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
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Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Recently Acquired Kindle Books
Related Log24 remarks:
Yoda Quilts and posts now tagged Central Myth.
Related remarks elsewhere:
“In The Uncanny Nicholas Royle defined Freud’s Unheimlichkeit
and the experience of an ‘unreal reality’ as ‘another thinking of
beginning’. But if we are to take him at his word, ‘the beginning
is already haunted’ and we may wish to interpret his debut novel
Quilt as spectrally haunted by the critic’s earlier theory. The essay,
which is structured telephonically, since it refers both to Royle’s
view of literature as telepathy (i.e. another form of ‘tele-‘) and the
beginning of the novel, reads Quilt from its ‘Afterward’, to unveil
two main ghosts haunting Royle’s novel: that of Jacques Derrida
and that of James Joyce.”
—Arleen Ionescu, abstract of a 2013 essay on Royle’s Quilt .
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Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Lynchburg Law Continues.
Flashback to November 22, 2004 —
Charles Williams on the
Salem witchcraft trials:
“The afflicted children continued to testify; there entered into the cases
what was called ‘spectral evidence,’ a declaration by the witness that
he or she could see that else invisible shape before them, perhaps hurting them.
It was a very ancient tendency of witnesses, and it had occurred at a number of
trials in Europe.”
— Witchcraft , Meridian Books, Inc., New York,
1959 (first published 1941), page 281
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Friday, May 8, 2020
Moon Song
"Even when some parts of the show don’t feel like they’re working,
the production is always top notch and eye-popping. The score, too,
is top notch here, but it’s the use of Pink Floyd’s 'The Dark Side of
the Moon' that resonates most."
— Kevin Lever on the Westworld May 3 Season 3 finale
Image from Log24 posts tagged Spectral Valhalla —
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Sunday, April 26, 2020
Crux
This post was suggested by a David Justice weblog post yesterday,
Coincidence and Cosmos. Some related remarks —
“The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning
of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not
typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the
meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside,
enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a
haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes
are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.”
— Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness
“By groping toward the light we are made to realize
how deep the darkness is around us.”
— Arthur Koestler, The Call Girls: A Tragi-Comedy,
Random House, 1973, page 118
See as well posts now tagged Crux.
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Sunday, January 5, 2020
Dog Art
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Wednesday, January 28, 2015
V is for Verity
Or: Spectral Theory
(continued from Oct. 2, 2013, and earlier)
A memorable phrase by Verity Stob
at theregister.co.uk on Jan. 26:
"… remember you're not just an emotionless Dalek.
You are in the lavender band of the autistic spectrum."
See also lavender in this journal…
("Dalek, Spacek. Spacek, Dalek.")
Verity herself —
Verity's column, illustrated above, on Nov. 12, 2013,
was titled "Three Men in a Tardis."
Connoisseurs of synchronicity may consult my own
remarks on that date. Three men discussed there
are the two X-Men patriarchs Patrick Stewart and
Ian McKellen, as well as a more interesting character,
composer Sir John Tavener.
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Friday, July 25, 2014
Magic in the Moonshine
“The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning
of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not
typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the
meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside,
enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a
haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes
are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.”
— Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness
“By groping toward the light we are made to realize
how deep the darkness is around us.”
— Arthur Koestler, The Call Girls: A Tragi-Comedy,
Random House, 1973, page 118
“Spectral evidence is a form of evidence
based upon dreams and visions.” —Wikipedia
See also Moonshine (May 15, 2014) and, from the date of the above
New York Times item, two posts tagged Wunderkammer .
Related material: From the Spectrum program of the Mathematical
Association of America, some non-spectral evidence.
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Thursday, May 15, 2014
Moonshine
“The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning
of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not
typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the
meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside,
enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a
haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes
are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.”
— Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness
Photo of full moon over Oslo last night by Josefine Lyche:
A scene from my film viewing last night:
Some background (click to enlarge):
Note:
The “I, Frankenstein” scene above should not be interpreted as
a carrying of Martin Gardner through a lyche gate. Gardner
is, rather, symbolized by the asterisk in the first image from
the above Google search.
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Thursday, October 3, 2013
STEM
“ ‘A babbled of green fields”
— Phrase attributed to Shakespeare
quoted here on September 15th
From a New York Times piece online today,
a quote promoting science and technology,
and a quote on aptitude :
… the STEM fields (“STEM” being the current shorthand
for “science, technology, engineering and mathematics”),
which offer so much in the way of job prospects, prestige,
intellectual stimulation and income….
… scientific and mathematical aptitude at
the very highest end of the spectrum ….
From a post of June 9, 2013 :
Related material — yesterday’s posts
See as well Mood Indigo.
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Thursday, September 5, 2013
Kernel and Glow
"The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning
of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not
typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the
meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside,
enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a
haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes
are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine."
— Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness
Kernel — See Nocciolo.
Glow — See Moonshine and Moonshine II.
See also Cold Open (Jan. 29, 2011) and
Where Entertainment is God (Aug. 25, 2013).
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Wednesday, October 24, 2012
In a Nutshell
"The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity,
the whole meaning of which
lies within the shell of a cracked nut.
But Marlow was not typical
(if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted),
and to him the meaning of an episode
was not inside like a kernel but outside,
enveloping the tale which brought it out
only as a glow brings out a haze,
in the likeness of one of these misty halos
that sometimes are made visible by
the spectral illumination of moonshine."
— Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness
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Sunday, April 3, 2011
On to Chicago!
Commentary on last night—
Tonight: The After-Party.
In related news…
"The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which
lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical
(if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning
of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale
which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of
one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by
the spectral illumination of moonshine."
– Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness , quoted here in
Cold Open (Saturday night, January 29, 2011)
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Saturday, January 29, 2011
Cold Open
"The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine."
— Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness
Some background—
An image from yesterday's search
God, TIme, Hopkins
"We got tom-toms over here bigger than a monster
Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla"
— "Massive Attack"
"I'm just checking your math on that. Yes, I got the same thing."
"Live… Uh, check that… From New York, it's Saturday Night! "
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Saturday, September 23, 2006
Saturday September 23, 2006
|
“A corpse will be — Under the Volcano,
“It has a ghastly familiarity,
like a half-forgotten dream.” — Poppy (Gene Tierney) in |
|
Temptation
|
|
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live…. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ‘ideas‘ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience. Or at least we do for a while. I am talking here about a time when I began to doubt the premises of all the stories I had ever told myself, a common condition but one I found troubling.” From Patrick Vert, “There are plenty of anecdotes to highlight the personal, phenomenological experience of railway passage… … a unique study on phantasmagoria and the history of imagination. The word originates [in] light-projection, the so-called ghost-shows of the early 19th century…. … thought becomes a phantasmagorical process, a spectral, representative location for the personal imagination that had been marginalized by scientific rationalism…. This phantasmagoria became more mediated over time…. Perception became increasingly visually oriented…. As this occurred, a narrative formed to encapsulate the phenomenology of it all….” For such a narrative, see |
| From a Christian fairy tale:
Aslan’s last words come at the end of The Last Battle: ‘There was a real railway accident […] Your father and mother and all of you are–as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands–dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.’…. Aslan is given the last word in these quiet but emphatic lines. He is the ultimate arbiter of reality: “‘There was a real railway accident.'” Plato, in addition to the Christian tradition, lies behind the closing chapters of The Last Battle. The references here to the Shadowlands and to the dream refer back to an earlier explanation by Digory, now the Lord Digory: “[…] that was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia, which has always been here and always will be here: just as our world, England and all, is only a shadow or copy of something in Aslan’s real world. [….] Of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream. […] It’s all in Plato, all in Plato: bless me, what do they teach them at these schools!” |
| “I was reading Durant’s section on Plato, struggling to understand his theory of the ideal Forms that lay in inviolable perfection out beyond the phantasmagoria. (That was the first, and I think the last, time that I encountered that word.)” |
Whether any of the above will be of use in comforting the families of those killed in yesterday morning’s train wreck in Germany is not clear. Pope Benedict XVI, like C. S. Lewis, seems to think Greek philosophy may be of some use to those dealing with train wrecks:
| “Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: ‘In the beginning was the logos.‘ This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, syn logo, with logos. Logos means both reason and word– a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist.”
— Remarks of the Pope at the University of Regensburg on Sept. 12, 2006 |
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Sunday, December 12, 2004
Sunday December 12, 2004
Ideas, Stories, Values:
Literati in Deep Confusion
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live….
We interpret what we see, select the most workable of multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ‘ideas‘ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.
Or at least we do for a while. I am talking here about a time when I began to doubt the premises of all the stories I had ever told myself, a common condition but one I found troubling.”
Interview with Joseph Epstein:
“You can do in stories things that are above those in essays,” says Epstein. “In essays and piecework, you are trying to make a point, whereas in stories you are not quite sure what the point is. T.S. Eliot once said of Henry James, ‘He had a mind so fine no idea could violate it,’ which, I think, is the ultimate compliment for an author. Stories are above ideas.”
Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers, Sept. 12, 2004:
“You are entering a remarkable community, the Harvard community. It is a community built on the idea of searching for truth… on the idea of respect for others….
… we practice the values we venerate. The values of seeking truth, the values of respecting others….”
“… Hegel discusses ‘culture’ as the ‘world of self-alienated spirit.’ The idea seems to be that humans in society not only interact, but that they collectively create relatively enduring cultural products (stories, dramas, and so forth) within which they can recognise their own patterns of life reflected.”
The “phantasmagoria” of Didion seems related to the “phenomenology” of Hegel…
From Michael N. Forster, Hegel’s Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit:
“This whole system is conceived, on one level at least, as a defense or rational reworking of the Christian conception of God. In particular, its three parts are an attempt to make sense of the Christian idea of a God who is three in one — the Logic depicting God as he is in himself, the Philosophy of Nature God the Son, and the Philosophy of Spirit God the Holy Spirit.”
and, indeed, to the phenomenology of narrative itself….
From Patrick Vert,
The Narrative of Acceleration:
“There are plenty of anecdotes to highlight the personal, phenomenological experience of railway passage…
… a unique study on phantasmagoria and the history of imagination. The word originates [in] light-projection, the so-called ghost-shows of the early 19th century….
… thought becomes a phantasmagorical process, a spectral, representative location for the personal imagination that had been marginalized by scientific rationalism….
Truly, ‘immediate experience is [or becomes] the phantasmagoria of the idler’ [Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Page 801.]….
Thought as phantasm is a consequence of the Cartesian split, and… a further consequence to this is the broad take-over of perceptual faculty…. What better example than that of the American railway? As a case-study it offers explanation to the ‘phantasmagoria of the idler’….
This phantasmagoria became more mediated over time…. Perception became increasingly visually oriented…. As this occurred, a narrative formed to encapsulate the phenomenology of it all….”
For such a narrative, see
the Log24.net entries of
November 5, 2002, 2:56 AM,
November 5, 2002, 6:29 AM,
January 3, 2003, 11:59 PM,
August 17, 2004, 7:29 PM,
August 18, 2004, 2:18 AM,
August 18, 2004, 3:00 AM, and
November 24, 2004, 10:00 AM.
Monday, November 22, 2004
Monday November 22, 2004
Lynchburg Law
From today’s New York Times:
|
The Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University [at Lynchburg, Virginia] is part of a movement around the nation that brings a religious perspective to the law.
Sam Dean for The New York Times The connection between the Bible and the law is part of the curriculum at Liberty, one of a number of new religiously oriented law schools. |
The Times’s photo (above) of books on the Bible and the law, apparently at Lynchburg, suggests a related book that may be of considerable value to the legal scholars there:
Charles Williams on the
Salem witchcraft trials:
“The afflicted children continued to testify; there entered into the cases what was called ‘spectral evidence,’ a declaration by the witness that he or she could see that else invisible shape before them, perhaps hurting them. It was a very ancient tendency of witnesses, and it had occurred at a number of trials in Europe.”
— Witchcraft, Meridian Books, Inc., New York,
1959 (first published 1941), page 281
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